OCCUPY DISNEY! - Dec TR - Updated 1/26!

[tankgirl427]

So today I finally finished up my October TR and I'm a week away from my January trip, so I might as well start on my December TR!

Who Am I?

Hi! I'm Betsy. I live outside of Boston and live about a mile away from a Disney Store. I decided yesterday if I ever lose my job again I might as well apply to work there since that's where most of my money ends up. I love Belle, but Rapunzel is pretty up there too. My favorite ride is BTMRR. I love Pooh's Puffed toast and I've been waiting a year to eat some WPE.

In August, AP discount came out for the rest of the year. I have always wanted to stay at the AKL so I booked a couple nights in December and then realized it was way too expensive to stay at for a quick two night trip. So I started pricing other hotels while texting a friend's wife and AP holder to see if she was interested. Within 24 hours we had confirmed we would be going, picked which weekend, and booked ourselves for three nights at Pop Century.

Enter Shelly: (not the best photo but most photos are on her camera which I don't have yet)

Shelly would totally fit with this group if I could get her to find free time and sign up.

So we were off to Pop Century from December 9th - 12th with MVMCP on the 11th.

Join us on our crazy fun filled long weekend trip to the World!

 

[tankgirl427]

Planning of the Trip!
It's Time to Go!
Time to Go to Disney!
Day 1 - 12/10 HS EMH Morning
Day 1 - 12/10 Afternoon/Evening
Day 1 - 12/10 MK EMH
Day 2 - 12/11 Epcot Morning
Day 2 - 12/11 Getting Ready for MVMCP at the MK!

 

[KatMark]

So today I finally finished up my October TR and I'm a week away from my January trip, so I might as well start on my December TR!

Who Am I?

Hi! I'm Betsy. I live outside of Boston and live about a mile away from a Disney Store. I decided yesterday if I ever lose my job again I might as well apply to work there since that's where most of my money ends up. I love Belle, but Rapunzel is pretty up there too. My favorite ride is BTMRR. I love Pooh's Puffed toast and I've been waiting a year to eat some WPE.

In August, AP discount came out for the rest of the year. I have always wanted to stay at the AKL so I booked a couple nights in December and then realized it was way too expensive to stay at for a quick two night trip. So I started pricing other hotels while texting a friend's wife and AP holder to see if she was interested. Within 24 hours we had confirmed we would be going, picked which weekend, and booked ourselves for three nights at Pop Century.

Enter Shelly: (not the best photo but most photos are on her camera which I don't have yet)

Shelly would totally fit with this group if I could get her to find free time and sign up.

So we were off to Pop Century from December 9th - 12th with MVMCP on the 11th.

Join us on our crazy fun filled long weekend trip to the World!

Betsy, I'm here and can't wait to follow along.

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Joining in!!! Can't wait to hear more!

 

[Nermel9]

I'm here, can't wait to hear about your trip, and see if we were in the same place at any time! That reminds me, I really have to update my December TR...maybe tomorrow morning!

 

[solana131]

I'm in too. Wow! Did I make first page?! I've never done that before
Which Disney store do you live near? I just went to the Manchester one last weekend and they had NOTHING! I mean, they had toys and pjs and a few princess things, but nothing at all for adult clothing and hardly anything for 5 year old boy either. Very dissappointing trip....we are about 2 hours away from Manchester, but it is the closest one. Wondering if your store has more. I could travel to Boston area just as easily as Manchester.

 

[annmarieda]

I am here!!! What a perfect title!!!

 

[swwake]

I'm here too! Can't wait to read more.

 

[tankgirl427]

Betsy, I'm here and can't wait to follow along.

Hey Kathy, Good to see you! You're first! Yippee!!!!

Joining in!!! Can't wait to hear more!

Hi Sara. I can't wait for next week especially if the decorations are still up!

I'm here, can't wait to hear about your trip, and see if we were in the same place at any time! That reminds me, I really have to update my December TR...maybe tomorrow morning!

Morning Nermel! We might have been! We were definitely closer than we knew!

I'm in too. Wow! Did I make first page?! I've never done that before
Which Disney store do you live near? I just went to the Manchester one last weekend and they had NOTHING! I mean, they had toys and pjs and a few princess things, but nothing at all for adult clothing and hardly anything for 5 year old boy either. Very dissappointing trip....we are about 2 hours away from Manchester, but it is the closest one. Wondering if your store has more. I could travel to Boston area just as easily as Manchester.

Welcome! I live near the Square One Mall, I think there and Braintree are the only two Disney stores near Boston. They have a decent selection for adults, mostly t-shirts, but some sweatshirts and they have stuff for a 5 year old boy since my neighbor brings her 4 year old there and we have a blast!

I am here!!! What a perfect title!!!

Hey Ann! Oh you missed where the title came from. It had us giggling the whole plane ride home! BTW we have to take another trip together so we get a photo of us!

I'm here too! Can't wait to read more.

Hi Susan. How's having Katie home? I am on the edge of my seat waiting to hear all about your trip, the wand picking, and the excitement of moving to Disney!

 

[tankgirl427]

Before I get on with D-day (departure, Disney, delighted, whatever) I want to start at the beginning of the planning for this trip, which in itself was very easy compared to the planning for October's trip.

Shelly and I decided that we were going to go for a long weekend since the price at Pop was so reasonable, and we figured out which weekend. Then we started to look at airfare, I had miles from Delta for getting their cc when I booked my first flight for the January trip, which I later had refunded since they changed my non-stop flights to connecting flights. The Delta flights from Boston to MCO were at ridiculous times (10am or 2pm), but the flights coming back from MCO weren't too bad (11am or 6pm). We decided to go with the 6pm and traded in the mileage for $100 off each one of our fares, bringing the grand total to our flight back to $71 combined! When I got my statement I had an additional $50 credit bringing the total now to $21! I guess if you get the Delta cc and purchase a flight within the first three months of having it you get a $50 credit.

So we had our flight back purchased and we only needed a flight down there, we were torn between taking Air Tran at 6pm and Jet Blue at 8pm, basically it boiled down to the fact that Air Tran was $20 cheaper and got us there 2 hours earlier so we'd be in Disney sooner. We booked Air Tran and settled in for the wait, in the mean time I had found us a pre park ADR for Crystal Palace on 12/11 the day we were planning on going to the Christmas Party! We knew what we wanted to accomplish and which days we could do it in and our plans were set!

At this point, I compared our quick trip with Ann's PTR since I thought she was maybe showing up that same weekend. Not only was she going to be there, but her flight would landed 1/2 hour before ours on the same day and she was staying at Pop for the first two days too! And she and her family were planning on going to MVMCP on the 11th! Small World! We made arrangements to take the ME over to Pop together and hopefully see one another at the Christmas Party.

After finding this out, started the long wait for the countdown for my October trip, where I got to know Ann a WHOLE lot better!

When I came back, I was anxiously awaiting December. Shelly called me one day and let me know she got an email from Air Tran that our fights had changed. There were no more non-stop flights from Boston to MCO, so we called and got a refund. Then we needed a new flight down to MCO. Really the only option that was left was Jet Blue, there was a 4:40pm or a 8pm flight. The 4:40 flight would put us an hour ahead of Ann, so we might not be able to meet at ME, but I would try to make it work! We booked and enjoyed having everything set...... until the December hours changed! Now MK was opening at 8am on the 11th, so our pre-park breakfast was no more! I dropped the reservation and started looking for one on the 12th that would be pre-park since it was the only day. In the meantime, Ann said she was doing the same thing, so I asked if she would want to eat together since the meal was OOP for her and I have TIW. She agreed and I searched for 6, 4, or 2 people in the MK before the park opened. A few days before the trip I found it! A 8:40am pre-park breakfast at CRT. I snatched it up and put down three adults and one child. Whether it was Shelly and myself with Ann and Zoe or Ann's family or all of us, at least we had a reservation!

Finally settled, I overpacked my suitcase for three days and enough decorations to decorate most of Pop and waited for Friday to get here!

 

[swwake]

Hi Susan. How's having Katie home? I am on the edge of my seat waiting to hear all about your trip, the wand picking, and the excitement of moving to Disney!

Oh we are loving having Katie at home! I will try to update my TR at least once this weekend. I'm off Monday, so I may just write a bunch of the TR and save the posts to make them a couple of days apart moving forward.

I can't believe how well you summarized all of the planning and changes into a single post!

 

[annmarieda]

"I overpacked my suitcase for three days and enough decorations to decorate most of Pop"

Yes, yes you did... but it was AMAZING! I hope you got pictures. I plan to put the ones I took up on my TR. Oh...and your tree. I have it. I just need to box it up to send back to you. (I put it up at home too since my real tree was quite dead when I got home) Course, the tree couldn't stay up for long since my Kitty, grr seemed to think that she needed to have an epic battle with it.

 

[tankgirl427]

Oh we are loving having Katie at home! I will try to update my TR at least once this weekend. I'm off Monday, so I may just write a bunch of the TR and save the posts to make them a couple of days apart moving forward.

I can't believe how well you summarized all of the planning and changes into a single post!

My parents loved having me at home, but I couldn't stand it since I had a taste of living on my own (within the confines of school) and it was very weird not being there. This trip was a breeze to plan and we didn't have one headache, except losing the pre park ADR time.

"I overpacked my suitcase for three days and enough decorations to decorate most of Pop"

Yes, yes you did... but it was AMAZING! I hope you got pictures. I plan to put the ones I took up on my TR. Oh...and your tree. I have it. I just need to box it up to send back to you. (I put it up at home too since my real tree was quite dead when I got home) Course, the tree couldn't stay up for long since my Kitty, grr seemed to think that she needed to have an epic battle with it.

Well I overpack and I like tape. You should know that by now! Shelly has photos of the room decorations which I don't have because usually I forget to take pictures the first few days. Don't worry about the tree. If the lights were mine instead of Shelly's I would have pack those for you too, I didn't consider you packing the tree to come home with you! Jessie and Elise are having fun with the low hanging ornaments on our tree right now.

BTW: Target had all their Christmas stuff 70% off, so I picked up some micro lights for our next Christmas trip and all the Mickey Christmas plates and things were marked down too!!!

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Oh. My. Goodness.

Alright, so I read that you said the park hours changed, and in my mind I completely forgot that I was reading your TR, and not your PTR, so I started pulling up the calendar all frantic, like I didn't notice the hours had changed! When did they change??? And it literally took me until I opened the page to comment to realize that you were talking about December.

I have officially been planning this trip for WAY too long!

Glad that your flight plans worked out well! Way to go with your prices!!

 

[flamestarrdust]

Joining in! Saw you had a TR via Annmarie's TR so figured I'd check it out. Can't wait to read more!

 

[Nermel9]

Haha, I brought a ton of decorations that I didn't end up using, so between the 2 of us, we could have decorated all of Pop!

I still can't believe I walked by your door and didn't write you a message! Ughhh!!!

 

[tankgirl427]

Oh. My. Goodness.

Alright, so I read that you said the park hours changed, and in my mind I completely forgot that I was reading your TR, and not your PTR, so I started pulling up the calendar all frantic, like I didn't notice the hours had changed! When did they change??? And it literally took me until I opened the page to comment to realize that you were talking about December.

I have officially been planning this trip for WAY too long!

Glad that your flight plans worked out well! Way to go with your prices!!

LOL Sara, I would have done the same thing. Not confusing enough that I have three reports going on at the same time. We already went over the changes in January, they better not change again! We were really trying to make the trip a budget trip since it was so quick and I needed to save money for January still.

Joining in! Saw you had a TR via Annmarie's TR so figured I'd check it out. Can't wait to read more!

Welcome!

Haha, I brought a ton of decorations that I didn't end up using, so between the 2 of us, we could have decorated all of Pop!

I still can't believe I walked by your door and didn't write you a message! Ughhh!!!

We could have at least full decorated every window in our building! We kept noticing a room in Building 3 with a ton of decorations when we went for the elevator, but we never went anywhere but our room while there. That's awesome that you at least know you walked by my room. I'm sure we'll run into each other on another trip with our APs!

 

[tankgirl427]

The week before we were scheduled to leave I told my boss that our flight had been changed from leaving at 6:30pm to 4:40pm. It was sort of true, minus the part that we cancelled our 6:30pm flight when it was no longer a non-stop. I asked to come into work early so I could leave at 3pm to go to the airport.

Can I just say I have the best BF in the world when I'm not bringing him to Disney with me? I was trying to work from 7am - 3pm with no break for lunch and I asked him to only work the morning shift which is from 9am -3pm so he could drive me to the airport. Not only did I get him to agree to that, I got him to agree to drive me to be at work at 7am so I didn't have to leave my car there.

We woke up Friday morning around 5:30 - 6am and drove to my worksite (which is very close to his jobsite), we got there by 7am and I invited him to come in and hang out before he left for work. At 8am he left for work and I was trying very hard to focus and get to 3pm. I spent a lot of time on DIS, I reread Ann's PTR to see when she was planning to get up and when her flight was and her layover and converting it to Eastern time to see when I can start texting her because I was so excited! Needless to say, I probably should have taken the day off, because I wasn't much help to anyone. Plus, I was getting texts from Shelly about when I was leave, that she was at the airport, security was a breeze. I wanted to be there too!

I was getting a little nervous because right before 3pm, my boss asked me for help regarding something and I saw BF pull into the parking lot for me. I was trying to explain to my boss, while getting calls and texts from BF that he was here. By 3:05pm, he realized I was supposed to go to the airport and I ran out of there! I promised I would bring him back some good chocolate in England and ran out and into BF's car. By 3:30pm I was in the airport, luggage checked, and in the security line. I took the rule of thumb, most people go to the right, so I went left. Wrong choice! It took me about 15 minutes to get through security and I always walked all the way through after the body scanner, that would have been interesting! Grabbed my bags, shoved my feet in my shoes and took off to find Shelly. Once again, luck was not on my side as I got stuck behind the slowest moving people who decided to take up the whole hallway and pay no attention to the fact there were people trying to get around them. I got to the gate found Shelly, we compared our Disney carryon bags and settled in for all of 20 minutes before we started boarding.

We had picked seats in Row 20, because I knew that after people with Extra Space, families, and people who needed more time for boarding, we'd be the first group on so we'd have great overhead bin availability. The flight was full, and it was sort of annoying cause a family a few rows ahead of us put their bags in the overhead and then closed the bin so no one else would go in it. Not to mention they had ribbons tied to their bag that were hanging out, but that's all stuff that didn't affect me. This plane only had two seats on each side, so Shelly took the window and I had the aisle. We took off fine and on time and I slept for a little bit, we went over plans for high score on TSM, plans for MVMCP, and the hours for the Holiday storytellers.

The next thing I know, its time to start landing and its only about 7:45pm when we were supposed to land at 8. I use my phone to check on Ann's flight which says it on time for 9pm. We get off the plane, use the restroom,
and head to baggage claim, we didn't want to wait for ME to get us our bags since we wanted to have the decorations up ASAP since we only had three days. After reading Ann's story about getting her bags I'm glad we didn't do ME!

But I had to stop once we finished the walk towards the fake monorail and take a photo.

I Christmas trees and twinkly lights. We took the fake monorail over and I checked out the big board which said Ann's flight was arriving early at 8:45pm, this was only 45 minutes away and totally doable since we had to get our luggage and get something to eat before loading on the ME. We got our luggage with no problem and went up to the food court and had dinner at Chick-a-fil. We then went to the Earport to check out the Disney merch while killing time and waiting for it to be time for Ann and Zoe.

Up Next: Time to go to Disney!

 

[Monknmom]

How nice to just go on a trip with a friend! That is really great that you got to plan most things to coincide with Ann's family! They really are a nice family- I wish we spent a little more time!
Don't the bosses always do that? They "forget" about your leaving and have things to talk to you about right before hand? Oh my... at least you got there on time and arrived safe and sound!

 

[swwake]

We missed that tree somehow. I wish we had seen it. Maybe it wasn't in the terminal with Southwest?

Glad you got there without a hitch, especially with your boss forgetting that you needed to leave early!